PLANTWISE

Hardy plants for the tropicalesque garden

aka, tropical masqueraders

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Oct 31, 2009 at 09:45AM 1 Comments

It isn’t that hard to create this kind of look in a temperate garden. Really.

Wandering the streets of Honolulu on Halloween, I can’t help but think about the idea of horticultural masquerade – how to dress up a temperate garden in tropical costume, as it were – to recreate the feeling of a tropical garden back home in Portland. There are a few different kinds of tropical plant masqueraders that work well for this purpose.

Is this papaya or is it rice paper plant (Tetrapanax)? It’s hard to tell without the context. Since this photo was taken in Hawai’i, it’s gotta be papaya, the Tetrapanax look-alike.

There are plenty of plants that resemble common tropical plants but are actually completely hardy. Of course I’ve already mentioned the Chinese paperbush – Edgeworthia. There’s also the rice paper plant – Tetrapanax papyfer – which resembles the tropical papaya. I did a double-take looking at a planting of pohinahina – Vitex rotundifolia – which looked for all the world like a low hebe hedge. There’s also a plant that resembles a dwarf form of hardy Pittosporum tobira. Known in Hawai’i as naupaka – Scaevola taccada – I found myself staring at it with disbelief when I first saw it from afar.

A Hawai’ian native plant called naupaka whose foliage resembles that of a landscape plant found in Portland (Pittosporum tobira), at least at first glance. Okay, maybe only after a fancy tropical drink or two…

Another category include plants that are common garden plants in the tropics but are also perfectly hardy in a temperate zone like Portland. These include Aucuba, mondo grass – Ophiopogon – and cast iron plant – Aspidistra.

And then there are those tropical masqueraders that have both hardy and tender members within the genus. I think of hibiscus, jasmine, oleander, ferns, palms, bananas, cannas, colocasia, and gingers, for starters. All of them have lush, tropical-looking family members that are cold-hardy yet look as lush as their tropical brethren.

Gingers are actually one of my favorite tropical masqueraders: Hedychium coccinium, H. coronarium, H. densiflorum, H. gardnerianum, and dozens of hybrids – to name just a few that grow well in Portland. The heady scent of H. coronarium definitely adds to the tropical feeling.

Cannas are fun but the flowers can be disagreeably bright and floppy. I like slender, narrow-leafed forms with darker leaves, like Canna ‘Intrigue’ – and I also like Canna musifolia, the banana-leafed canna (or the banana-canna, as it’s sometimes called). Reaching about 10 feet tall, it provides a wonderfully lush look and makes a big, lusty stand in just a couple of years.

Everyone knows you can grow banana trees in Oregon now – there are several hardy bananas but the most common is Musa basjoo. Easy as pie and capable of reaching 25 feet in height, this banana produces huge leaves and a truly tropical feeling in the garden. No, no edible fruit but who cares? You get those leaves!

Palms are a staple for any tropicalesque garden. There are plenty of hardy ones – the easiest to find being the Chinese windmill palm, Trachycarpus fortunei. These have been planted in Portland for years and some specimens reach 25 feet. But there are other species including other Trachycarpus species, dwarf palmetto – Sabal minor – and too many others to list. I suggest heading straight for Cistus Design Nursery for more information about hardy palms. (And, come to think of it, hardy gingers, bananas, cannas, jasmine, oleander, ferns, yuccas, agaves, and more.)

The tropical look is not the most fashionable trend in the gardening world right now. There was a hubbub over “Tropicalismo” about ten years ago and it seems to have fizzled out. But for some of us, it is beyond fashion: it’s an aesthetic that tugs at the heart. Love of tropicalesque plants can be born of anything from growing up or living in a tropical place to having oppositional-defiant disorder (you know, “everyone says you can’t grow things like that here but they’re all wrong!”) to just being, say, a deeply flamboyant personality. Whatever the reason, it’s good. If there’s an aesthetic you love and a type of plant that moves you, you had best embrace it. Gardening – or even simply spending time in a garden – is therapeutic. And if tropical-looking plants bring you good memories or make you feel happy, or fascinate you and draws you out into the garden, then that’s the way to go – fashionable or not. And if you’re lucky enough to live in a mid-century or ranch style house, you have even more reason to do it – tropicalesque plants look fantastic and are eminently well suited to such architectural styles.

My one admonition on the tropicennial-themed garden: large-leafed, tropical-looking plants are often thirsty plants that require summer water. After all, many of them come from lands of year-round rainfall – not summer-dry regions like ours. For this reason, plan ahead when creating a tropicalesque garden: enrich your soil with organic matter so it retains water and work on not mixing drought-tolerant, low-water plants with your moisture-loving tropicennials. That way, you conserve water by keeping it where it’s really needed.

I know of no hardy analogue for the “sausage tree”. This might be one of those tropical trees you don’t really want to try to replicate in a Portland garden. Except maybe for Halloween!

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Tags: Outdoor Gardening, Gardening Tips

Allium Alert!

Time to plant garlic for summer 2010 harvest

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Oct 18, 2009 at 10:00AM 6 Comments

Cured garlic braids. Next year, I’m having my expert garlic-braiding friend teach me exactly how to do it so it looks pretty, with dried flowers woven in to it.

Garlic is an essential ingredient in the kitchen and one that is easy to grow in our region. Garlic (the plant) just needs a sunny spot in the garden; rich, well-drained soil; and moderate supplemental water. And from now through early December or so is the ideal time to plant. It is usually harvested around mid-July (depending on the weather).

There are two basic groups of garlic: soft neck and hard neck. Soft neck garlic stores well, is easy to grow and can be braided. Hard neck garlic has larger, hotter-tasting cloves, are easier to peel, and produces buds in June that can be harvested as “garlic tops” and sauteed.

NB: I’m a huge fan of the varieties ‘Silver Rose’ and ‘Nootka Rose’ – both soft neck types that take well to braiding and have a lovely silvery-purple sheen. But everyone has their favorites. Try a few varieties and you’ll soon discover your own.

Garlic cloves can be readily found at local nurseries right now – I saw some at both the Portland Nursery and at Dennis’ Seven Dees in the past few days. They can also usually be ordered from the fabulous Hood River Garlic website. Right now, they’re mostly sold out of seed garlic for the season but they are great folks and have a wonderfully informative and inspiring website.

I always choose organic cloves to start with. In my experience, one fat head of garlic (breaking into about 20 cloves, each of which grow into a new head) is good for about a year’s worth of moderate cooking per person in the household.

Dig up your garden soil about 1.5’ deep with a shovel so you are assured that it is is not compacted. If you haven’t added fresh compost or other organic matter to your soil lately, now’s the time – buy a couple of bags of compost suitable for a vegetable garden (try a bale of Black Forest soil amendment, or Whitney Farms Planting Compost to lighten up the soil if it’s heavy clay). The quality of your soil is so important – don’t skimp on compost. It’s the best money you can spend in your garden – better than plants, better than fancy tools. It’s the foundation for all healthy plants and is especially important when you’re growing vegetables.

If your soil is well dug, drains well, and compost has been added lately, then you’re ready to plant:

Take your head of garlic and separate the cloves (don’t peel them) just prior to planting. Plant each clove about 2" deep with the pointed tip facing up. (You can see little dried white roots on the bottom.) If you’re planting in rows, space the rows 12" apart and plant the cloves (or “seed” garlic) about 6" apart. Gently pat the soil on top to create good soil-clove contact. Then water it in. That’s it!

Looking ahead over the garlic clove’s development, here’s what to do and what to expect:

-Keep the area weed-free so that the weeds aren’t competing with the garlic or shading the little spear-like leaves.
-Scratch some organic fertilizer down the rows or on the area in about March: cotton seed meal, blood meal or any other nitrogenous amendment is good.
-Once summer arrives around June, the garlic will cease producing new foliage and start forming bulbs. At this point, hard neck garlic produces “garlic tops,” which you can – and should – cut off and cook. Stop fertilizing and cut back on watering.
-About a week prior to harvest (early July), stop watering. If possible, let the garlic bed dry out to “cure” the bulbs in the ground.
-By mid-July, look at the leaves: when there are just 5 or 6 green leaves left on the plants, you can gently dig one up and see if the heads are fat and plump. If they look ready, gently harvest the rest of the bulbs with a fork. They can now be cured, braided (if soft neck), and stored for use.

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Tags: Vegetables, Outdoor Gardening, Gardening Tips

Plant Spring Bulbs in Containers

A festive autumn project

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Oct 08, 2009 at 10:00PM 2 Comments

Materials all assembled: pots, potting soil, mulch, scissors, frost cloth, bulb food… and the bulbs!

It’s October and that means it’s time to plant spring-flowering bulbs. Purple crocus, sunny yellow miniature daffodils (Narcissus), elegant blue iris, and other bulbs, both exotic and prosaic, can be found at retail nurseries now. (Portland Nursery has an especially wonderful selection at the moment, I noticed yesterday.) Plant bulbs now (certain kinds are best for this) and they will flower during the cold, dreary days of winter. In fact, if you plant Tete-a-Tete Narcissus in a pot in the next few days, you might even get them to flower by Christmas. They make nice gifts – and are all the sweeter when you have grown them yourself.

There are some tricks to planting different kinds of bulbs. To keep it simple, start with Tete-a-Tete Narcissus. Perhaps the most popular dwarf narcissus for forcing in the world, Tete-a-Tete is reliable, cheerful and above all, early. You can use adorable little terra cotta pots from yard sales (cheap!) and, once you have your materials assembled, you can pot up a half-dozen pots in 20 minutes. If you’re feeling adventurous, try some other easy, early types of bulbs like Crocus, other dwarf Narcissus and Iris reticulata as well.

First, gather your materials:

-a one-foot square of white frost cloth or newspaper (optional)
-scissors
-a bag of all-purpose potting soil (1 cu ft bag for a dozen medium terra cotta pots is about right)
-a bag of fine hemlock mulch (min 1 cu ft bag)
-organic bulb fertilizer (optional – it just gives bulbs nutrition for next year’s flowers, should you wish to plant them out in the garden after flowering)
-a few little pots (at least 4-5" deep for Tete-a-Tete narcissus – and as wide as you like)
-Bulbs (try other types in addition to Tete-a-Tete Narcissus if feeling adventurous!) You might start with 25 or so and plant any extras in your garden. I plant hundreds – but then again, I have zillions of little pots!
-plastic labels (I use the empty flip side of existing plastic plant labels – popsicle sticks work, too)
-a fine Sharpie pen or sharp pencil

Now, set up your work area. I always do it outdoors so I can make a mess.

1. Lay out your pots and estimate how many bulbs to plant per pot.
2. Cut newspaper or frost cloth squares 2-3 times the size of the drain holes and lay them over the holes to prevent soil from escaping when you water.
3. Fill the pots 1/3 full of potting soil.
4. Sprinkle fertilizer at recommended rate (by the tablespoon full for small pots) and mix it up.
5. sprinkle another handful of potting soil to separate the fertilizer from the bulbs – pots should be about 1/2 full of potting soil.
6. Gently snug bulbs onto potting soil. Don’t compact or push them hard into the soil. Their roots will need room to expand down there. I keep a tiny space between bulbs them so their roots have more room to spread out.

Like most bulbs, Narcissus can be fit closely but shouldn’t touch one another. Their roots can take up a lot of space so be sure there’s enough room at the bottom of the pot for the roots to spread out.

7. Sprinkle more potting soil onto the bulbs to cover, adding more until there is about 1/2-1 inch of space left at the top of the pot.
8. Label each pot with the bulb name, quantity, and date of planting.
9. Also calculate how long a cold period each type of bulb you plant needs (ie, Tete-a-Tete Narcissus 8-10 weeks; Iris reticulata ‘Pixie’ 12-15 weeks) and mark the day on your calendar to bring them indoors.
9. Add hemlock mulch to the top of the pots.
10. Water thoroughly, until water drains out of the bottom of the pots.
11. Finally, snug the pots into a dark, shady spot outdoors where they will receive winter rain. (Remember to water them during cold, dry periods in winter.) I place my pots on the north side of an unheated shed or garage, where no sun can warm the pots all winter. Then spread hemlock mulch over the containers so that the sides of the pots are completely buried in protective mulch. This will help insulate them from frigid temperatures in their tiny pots and also help retain moisture. If squirrels are burying nuts in your pots, lay chicken wire over the top.

I use fine hemlock bark to top-dress bulb pots. This helps retain moisture in the potting soil (which can tend to crust and dry out) and helps protect the bulbs from the cold winter air.

12. When the bulbs have been in cold sleep long enough (see chart below), look for small white shoots. At this point, you can scrape off some of the hemlock mulch and bring the container indoors in a cool, bright place like a drafty east windowsill (about 60F). This is where the term “forcing” comes in. By bringing the pots indoors, you are in effect tricking them into thinking it’s springtime, even when it’s cold outside. After 5-7 days, the sprouts start turning green. Move the container to a sunny window (no more than about 68F or shoots elongate and become floppy). Water daily and watch the beautiful flowers develop!

COLD, DARK PERIOD (40F or below) CHART:
Crocus: 10-12 weeks plus 2-3 weeks cool, light period
Hyacinth 12-15 weeks plus 2-3 weeks cool, light period
Miniature early Narcissus (including Tete-a-Tete): 8-12 weeks plus 2-4 weeks cool, light period
Tall Narcissus: 12-15 weeks plus 2-4 weeks cool, light period
Tulip: 14-16 weeks plus 2-4 weeks cool, light period
Iris: 12-15 weeks plus 2-3 weeks cool, light period

Some bulbs are more easily forced than others. Easy types include Crocus chrysanthus, Muscari latifolium or Muscari ‘Valerie Finnis’, Narcissus obvallaris, Narcissus ‘Rijnvelds Early Sensation,’ Narcissus ‘Jack Snipe’, early tulips like ‘Purple Prince’, or hyacinths. Larger bulbs are usually best in larger pots, not only because the bulbs themselves are bigger but because taller pots balance the height of taller bulbs. But play around. I like the look of small, late, black-flowered Fritillaria persica, the surreal ball-shaped Allium karataviense and pale blue Valerie Finnis Muscari. I’ve also planted a single orange parrot tulip bulb in a little terra cotta pot and it looked divine.

Iris reticulata ‘Pixie’ is very early and has the loveliest rich purple color.

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Tags: Gardening Tips, Indoor Gardening, Container Gardening

It’s Not Too Late for (Vege Garden) Love

…but don’t wait too long!

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Sep 03, 2009 at 11:00AM 4 Comments

Purple sprouting broccoli is easy to grow and so very cold hardy. Plant young plant starts now and they will slowly develop over the winter. In March and April, they produce exquisitely sweet, tender baby broccoli sprouts. There are green and purple types – the purple ones are almost too beautiful to eat.

Sure, some very organized vegetable gardeners have all their cabbages in a row and are merrily planning their winter dinners based on their clever succession of plantings. Okay, so I’m kind of talking about myself here. I knew I was going to write about it so I got moving early this year – in mid-July, to be precise. But if you have been busy enjoying your summer bounty and haven’t yet thought about your fall through spring harvest, don’t give up: there’s still time to plant quite a few excellent vegetables. (This is assuming you have a garden ready to receive these plants. If you don’t, check out this article on starting a new garden bed from scratch.)

Yesterday I spoke with a woman named Jolie Grindstaff who works at the Portland Nursery. (I enjoy chatting up the staff there – probably driving them crazy in the process.) Jolie writes a kitchen gardening blog. I asked her what vegetables she is still planting in early September. Here’s what she suggested. (Note: the commentary is mine and I made a few additional plant suggestions, too.)

For fall harvest:

From seed: radish, greens like mustard, and baby greens including mustard, kale, spinach, lettuce, cress, arugula, mache and mesclun salad mixes.

From starts only: Kale, Swiss chard, cold-hardy lettuces like Arctic Tundra or Winter Density, and all previously mentioned mesclun greens. Also, quick-ripening green peas like snow peas.

For winter harvest:

From starts only (through mid-late Sept): leafy greens including mustards, kale, broccoli raab (you harvest the tasty greens), and some fast-growing cabbages, if the plants are strong and healthy. Even more cold-hardy winter lettuce varieties can perish in really cold weather so consider covering your crop with frost cloth or little hoop houses during prolonged cold snaps – or harvest as mesclun greens before a freeze – for details, read this.

For spring harvest:

From seed: Mache, edible fava beans (Windsor, Aprovecho varieties)

From starts only: Overwintering carrots like Merida, overwintering sprouting broccoli, cold-hardy/overwintering cabbage, cauliflower and kale.

One of our best regional sources for cold-hardy, overwintering vegetable varieties is Territorial Seed Company. They clearly indicate which varieties are intended for overwintering.

Finally, I would add that it’s still too early to plant garlic cloves and shallot bulbs – they are best planted in mid- to late October or earliest November. As this is the season when we feel summer slipping regrettably through our fingers, it’s reassuring to know it’s still too early to do something in the garden!

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Tags: Vegetables, Gardening Tips